1. Field of Invention
This invention is directed to a graphical user interface for an image capture device, such as a scanner.
2. Description of Related Art
Scanners and other types of image capture devices have become ubiquitous office productivity tools for generating electronic images of physical original documents. Once an electronic image of a physical original document has been generated, the electronic image data can be used in an infinite variety of ways to increase the productivity and the product quality of an office. Such image capture devices include desktop scanners, other stand-alone scanners, digital still cameras, digital video cameras, the scanning input portions of digital copiers, facsimile machines and other multi-function devices that are capable of generating electronic image data from an original document, and the like. These image capture devices can also include image databases that store previously captured electronic image data.
However, as the cost of scanners and other image capture devices has dropped and the output quality of the captured electronic image data has improved, scanners and other image capture devices have been provided with an ever-increasing number of controllable features. Similarly, as users have become comfortable with capturing and using electronic image data obtained from original documents, the uses to which the electronic image data has been put, and thus the needed control over the quality and appearance of the electronic image data, have expanded greatly.
In response, standard interfaces between such image capture devices, including those indicated above, and the various application programs that use such captured electronic image data have been developed. These standard interfaces allow standard-compliant image capture devices and standard-compliant applications to easily communicate. One exemplary embodiment of such a standard interface is the TWAIN(trademark) interface. The TWAIN(trademark) interface allows any TWAIN(trademark)-compliant application program to input and use electronic image data using any TWAIN(trademark)-compliant image capture device.
The TWAIN(trademark)-compliant component protocol facilitates communication between application programs and image capture devices, such as those indicated above. One such TWAIN(trademark) image capture device is the XEROX(copyright) DigiPath(trademark) scanner.
The ever-increasing numbers of features provided by image capturing devices such as the Xerox(copyright) DigiPath(trademark) scanner cause users of these image capturing devices to find it increasingly difficult to obtain the desired scanning results. In addition, image capture jobs are becoming longer and more complex.
For example, many images are captured and scaled so that the captured image can be added into an existing electronic document or combined with other electronic document portions to form a composite image. In many cases, the portion of the resulting electronic document that the captured image will be inserted into has a fixed set of dimensions. In this case, the user is required to manually enter the dimension data into one or more text boxes of a graphical user interface in order to inform the image capture device of the ultimate area that the captured image will need to be scaled to fit into.
In conventional image capture device graphical user interfaces, the only way to inform the image capture device of the size of a region to which the captured image will need to be scaled, in order to fit the captured image into that fixed-area region of the composite document, is via text boxes. However, when a large number of images need to be scanned and scaled, having to continually type into the text boxes the appropriate dimensions for each of the captured images to be scaled significantly reduces the user-friendliness of the graphical user interface and the productivity of the user.
This invention thus provides systems, methods and graphical user-interfaces that allow the user to select one of a number of predetermined sets of scale dimensions to which the captured image is to be scaled.
This invention separately provides systems, methods and graphical user interfaces that provide an alternative method for specifying the dimensions to which a captured image is to be scaled.
In various exemplary embodiments of the systems, methods and graphical user interfaces of this invention, an image size tab of a graphical user interface for an image capture driver includes a scale portion. The scale portion, in addition to having a number of dimension boxes that allow the user to directly input the desired dimensions that the captured image is to be scaled to, also includes a dimension list box. The dimension list box includes a plurality of predetermined sets of dimensions to which the captured image can be scaled.
In various exemplary embodiments, the dimensions list box includes, as the predetermined sets, one or more sets of dimensions for common paper sizes and one or more sets of dimensions for different paper orientations. The one or more predetermined sets of dimensions can also include one or more sets of user-defined dimensions. These user-defined dimensions allow the user to specify the dimensions of an image area of a document that is often used. For example, if the user is preparing a school yearbook having a defined set of dimensions to which student photographs are to be scaled, as well as other commonly-used sets of dimensions to which other types of photographs are to be scaled, each of these commonly-used sets of dimensions can be predefined. Thus, the user does not have to continually re-enter the dimensions for these areas by hand into the dimension boxes of the scale portion of the graphical user interface.
These and other features and advantages of this invention are described in or are apparent from the following detailed description of various embodiments of the systems, methods and graphical user interfaces according to this invention.